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<h2>User interface</h2>

<p>Fontmatrix has both traditionally and not quite traditionally implemented 
functionality.</p>

<p>Most important user interface parts you will see are:</p>

<ul>
<li>Menu bar, on top of the window</li>
<li>Main area, with tabs representing one or another mode</li>
<li><em>Browse Fonts</em> sidebar</li>
<li><em>Tags</em> sidebar</li>
<li>Status bar</li>
<li>System tray icon</li>
</ul>

<h3>Menu bar</h3>

<p>There is nothing special about menu bar in Fontmatrix. Menu items are 
logically divided into 7 top level menus:</p>

<ul>
<li><em>File</em> menu collects everything related to input and output</li>
<li><em>Edit</em> menu collects everything related to items currently selected or filtered in search fonts sidebar</li>
<li><em>Browse</em> menu has command for navigating inside fonts sidebar</li>
<li><em>View</em> menu controls visibility of sidebars</li>
<li><em>Scripts</em> menu collects everything related to internal scripting</li>
<li><em>Service</em> menu groups various additional tools that you don't usually use on daily basis</li>
<li><em>Help</em> menu allows to open this help system and an About dialog</li>
</ul>

<h3>Main area</h3>

<p>Main area of the window is using tabbed interface to split different 
functionality. First three tabs (<em>Font Information</em>, <em>Sample Text</em> 
and <em>Glyphs</em>) are related to viewing fonts. The other three tabs 
(<em>Playground</em>, <em>Classification</em> and <em>Compare</em>) are related 
to refining selection of fonts and selecting exactly the ones you need by means 
of comparison.</p>

<p>Main area and <em>Browse Fonts</em> sidebar have mostly one-way connection: changes in the <em>Browse Fonts</em> sidebar affect content of the main area and not the other way round:</p>

<ul>
<li><a href="viewing_overview.html"><em>Font Information</em></a> tab displays a summary on a currently selected font.</li>
<li><a href="viewing_sample_text.html"><em>Sample Text</em></a> tab renders a text using a currently selected font.</li>
<li><a href="viewing_glyphs_chart.html"><em>Glyphs</em></a> tab displays a chart of glyphs present in a currently selected font and grouped by Unicode blocks.</li>
<li><a href="comparisons_fonts.html"><em>Playground</em></a> tab allows previeing and comparing single lines of custom text rendered using a currently selected font.</li>
<li><a href="comparisons_glyphs.html"><em>Compare</em></a> tab allows comparing glyphs of fonts selected in the <em>Browse Fonts</em> sidebar.</li>
</ul>

<p>The only exception is <a href="search_in_panose.html"><em>Classification</em></a> 
tab which has two-way connection with the sidebar: it both updates list of 
fonts in the sidebar to filter fonts that have particular PANOSE defined 
characteristics and reacts to changes in the sidebar.</p>

<h3>Browse Fonts sidebar</h3>

<p>This sidebar is the gateway to your fonts collection. What it does apart 
from letting you search for fonts using metadata queries (discussed in a 
<a href="search_in_generic_metadata.html">dedicated chapter</a>) is 
a) listing fonts already added to the database and b) listing fonts available 
in the local system and mounted remote systems. This functionality is divided 
into three tabs.</p>

<h4>Names</h4>

<p>Fonts that are already added to the database are listed here 
and sorted alphabetically by the first letter of a font's typeface. They are 
also grouped in several levels: the first level in initial letter of a name, 
the second level is name of the typeface and the last level is name of the 
variant (style). Activation and deactivation of fonts is explained 
<a href="management_activation.html">separately</a>.</p>

<p><img src="images/browse-fonts-names-tab.png" /></p>

<p>Clicking <em>Collapse or expand</em> opens a drop-down menu with items 
controlling view of the hierarchy described before: you can either collapse or 
expand items up to the first letter group (upper level).</p>

<p><em>Show face boxes</em> button toggles visibility of checkboxes in front of 
font family faces allowing or forbidding you to selectively activate or 
deactivate them in the system.</p>

<h4>Previews</h4>

<p>In this tab Fontmatrix renders samples of a short text with every filtered 
font sorted alpahabetically.</p>

<p><img src="images/browse-fonts-previews-tab.png" /></p>

<p>The text and font size of previews can be changed below previews. If you use 
some custom text, you might like turning on subtitles for every preview telling 
you what font is used. This can be done in <em>Display</em> tab of 
<em>Preferences</em> dialog along with choosing font and font size used for 
those subtitles.</p>

<p>By default however previews render names of fonts themselves. This is done 
using special commands with self-explanatory names: &lt;name&gt;, &lt;family&gt; 
and &lt;variant&gt;.</p>

<h4>Folders</h4>

<p><img src="images/browse-fonts-folders-tab.png" /></p>

<p>You can preview typefaces of installed fonts listed in the 
Windows Fonts view, typefaces of fonts listed in the List 
view, or you can select any folder in the Folders view preview 
all typefaces located in the selected folder.</p>

<h3>Tags sidebar</h3>

<p>This is where you manage tags and assign them to currently selected fonts. 
Detailed information on using tags to manage your fonts collection is provided 
in a <a href="management_tags.html">dedicated chapter</a>.</p>

<h3>Status bar</h3>

<p>Status bar in Fontmatrix isn't really used as extensively as e.g. in Inkscape. 
The left part displays hints for menu items. The right side names the currently 
selected font and lists amount of currently filtered fonts.</p>

<h3>System tray</h3>

<p>System tray, also known as <em>notification area</em>, is usually located 
somewhere on desktop environment panel (or one of the existing panels). Its 
function is to hide windows of applications that you don't want to see all the 
time.</p>

<p>Because you still might want to control some of these applications (even 
frequently sometimes), clicking on icons in the notification area usually either 
toggles visibility of the main window of an application or display a menu with 
various items. This is exactly how it works for Fontmatrix: right mouse button 
click toggles visibility of the main window, and left mouse button click reveals 
a menu. Since this is a highly optional feature, you can enable or disable it 
from <em>Preferences</em> dialog. Detailed information about this functionality 
is provided in a <a href="setting_up_preferences_system_tray.html">dedicated chapter</a>.</p>


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